


step nine

by jdphoenix



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Religion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 13:35:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6377362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jdphoenix/pseuds/jdphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After escaping federal custody, Grant settles down. Eventually, his past catches up with him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	step nine

**Author's Note:**

> This is NOT EVEN A LITTLE BIT my usual but between writing out why I ship these two characters (don't worry if that's not your thing, this is not shippy at all) and it being Easter, this kind of happened.
> 
> Fair warning: the POV on this is ... well, it's a POV. Also that religion tag is not a joke, every scene of this takes place in a church.

We all knew, from the first minute Jemma Simmons showed up, that there was something going on. She burst into our midweek high school meeting just as the amen was being said on the opening prayer and the few of us who were still watching Grant instead of the hurricane in the doorway got to see his face go _white_. He left it up to Sam then, had him start the music like usual, but it wasn’t usual, not at all.

See, Grant’s always respectful. The moms and dads like him because their teenage boys stopped sitting so close to the girls since he came around. Everybody wants to be just like him, so when they see Grant never touching a woman, always keeping this mindful distance between them, they get it in their heads it’s the way they should do it too.

Grant touched Jemma Simmons. He took her by the arm and pulled her towards the door, far as she would go, and he only stopped touching her when she shook him off. There wasn’t that distance either. He kept close, _real_ close, kinda like he wanted to be ready to grab her again if he needed to.

They fought. Not loud, not big enough to distract (not that half the group was even paying attention to the songs) but it was definitely fighting. And when it ended, she got to stay. Plopped herself right down on one of the ancient couches people donate to the youth room after they get so bad you could disappear inside ‘em for a year. She didn’t move the whole night and more than a few of us hung around after the lesson to see what Grant was gonna do with her.

He walked her out. Sort of. Tried to, but she just gave him this stone cold stare and he rolled his eyes and walked out ahead of her. She trailed him all the way to the parking lot.

Some of the girls said they’d do the same if they could, who doesn’t like looking at Grant’s ass? The guys all gagged. And that was the end of that.

For three days.

 

+++

 

She showed up on Sunday. Smiling. She said she was an “old friend” and was surprised to find him _here_ of all places, in that tone people who don’t really know what church is about use. We told her there’s no better place for a guy like Grant. Sinners, after all, need a savior.

She kept coming and Grant said she could do what she liked, so that was that. She joined the Thursday night knitting group even though the youngest lady in there was ten years older than her and only bothered to come because her own mother couldn’t drive after dark. She always stayed a little late, late enough to watch the high schoolers all wander out to the parking lot, late enough to watch Grant leave.

A few weeks in, he went to talk to her after. Some of us stayed behind, eager to see what would happen. Sheila Winters swears she heard the word “apologize” echo across the courtyard right before Jemma Simmons slapped him.

We all heard him say, “Okay then,” to her stiff back.

 

+++

 

No one was quite sure how to ask her if she was in love with him or stalking him - or even if the answers wouldn’t be the same - so we asked him. He laughed. A lot.

“Stalking, definitely,” he said, “but that’s cool. Seriously, she’s only trying to help. Simmons is … good.”

The thing about Grant and good was that he didn’t use the word lightly. He’d sit down with the boys - the young men, we should say - and listen to them talk about the things that were tearing them up inside, really weighing on their hearts, soul-crushing type stuff. And then he’d do the pastor thing, ask ‘em questions, send ‘em to the Word, give ‘em a little advice, but he’d always end the same way: hand on the shoulder and a “you’re a good kid, don’t let any of this make you forget that.” And we knew he meant it. Always. There was something about Grant, that when he told us we were good, we knew he’d seen enough bad to really know the difference.

So Jemma Simmons was good. And she seemed like it too. She made friends and settled in and helped out and did everything short of really believing.

We’re not stupid, we could see her rolling her eyes in service.

Eventually, it got to her.

 

+++

 

One bright and shining Tuesday morning, she showed up for a meeting with Pastor Dan. He smiled and shook her hand the way he does with all of us when we come in his office and then he asked what she needed to talk about so urgently.

He hoped - we all did - that she was ready to take that last little leap. That she just needed some questions ironed out before she could move forward. And maybe she did. We can’t read her heart, but maybe, just maybe, that was what really drove her to that office that day. She might’ve thought it was because of what she said-

“I feel you need to know, Grant Ward is not who you think he is.”

-but we can hope that was just one more barrier she needed knocking down. We’ll never know though. None of our business what the Big Guy’s got working in her.

She sat forward in her seat, all sincere-like. “He’s a mon-”

“Miss Simmons,” Dan said. “I’d like to show you something.”

And before she could figure out what to say, he was opening the door and ushering her out, down the stairs, and around the corner into the dark halls of the children’s classrooms. Light flowed out from one, same as it did every Tuesday morning. The air inside smelled like hot coffee and fresh donuts, and the chairs had been rearranged into a circle.

Dan and Jemma Simmons stayed in the hall and listened through two sad stories - a mother who’d lost her kids because of drugs and a man who’d lost his home to alcohol - before Grant stood up and spoke his piece. He had different versions, different groupings of the pieces of his story, so we don’t know for sure what he said that day, but we know what he talked about usually.

He talked about his addiction to violence. He talked about the thoughts that were carved into his mind like deep rivers - annoyance to anger to wrath to physical harm - and how easy it would be to follow them and how hard it was _every day_ to stop himself. He talked about hating God for letting him be hurt when he was young, for taking away this thing that just made him happy. He talked about good days slowly outnumbering bad. He talked about long nights spent hating himself and silly, stupid deals with God that if the sun rose, that meant He still loved him anyway. And he talked about always, no matter how stupid it was, feeling better when the morning came.

We don’t know how much of that he said that day, but we know Jemma Simmons left crying before the meeting let out.

 

+++

 

She came back one last time that Sunday, sat down right next to Grant and didn’t look his way once until the service let out.

“I still hate you,” we heard her say, “but I think I can forgive you.”

And he stared, jaw slack.

And she hugged him, nearly too quick to see.

And then she left.

We could be wrong, but we think things got a little easier for him after that.

 

+++

 

A month later, Daisy Johnson sat down at the back of the sanctuary. She spent the whole sermon staring holes in the back of Grant’s head. And it all started again.

 

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from Alcoholics Anonymous' twelve step program. Step nine is "Make direct amends to [anyone you have harmed] wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others."


End file.
